Behind the scenes at the KC Festival of Stories

Kingston Connections (or KC) is a project dedicated to exploring storytelling in every way. Whether it’s through theatre, performance, poetry, writing, seminars, lectures or song, storytelling has been the foundation of communities for thousands of years and we thought it was about time we celebrated it!

KC is a three-year collaboration between four organisations: Kingston University, The Royal Borough of Kingston, Creative Youth (who put on the International Youth Arts Festival each year) and The Rose Theatre. Together we have committed to trying to help Kingston residents, and those who work here, to appreciate the wealth of interesting stuff that is going on locally.

My role is to manage the University’s contribution, as part of my wider (part-time) role as the University’s Civic Engagement Coordinator. What this means in practice is encouraging staff to share their research with a wider audience, by laying on a series of talks that are open to all. Tickets are cheap (£5 or £3 for concessions) and for university sponsored events are completely free to Kingston students, staff and alumni. Given that our Estates Department estimated recently that one in ten homes in Kingston is occupied by someone who was at KU, is now, or works here, that means we could raise a considerable audience just through the distribution of free tickets!

Dr Gary Hickey will talk about how to get patients and the public involved in decision making in health and social care (Sunday 22nd June)

Kingston’s woman in space – Helen Sharman, who now works at KU, talks about the experience of being Britain’s first astronaut (Monday 23rd June)

Dr Korina Giaxoglou talks about her research into how mourning takes place online – her lecture will include discussion, tea and cake (Saturday 28th June)

Dr Claudia Uller will talk about how babies understand the world, and in particular the work of the Kingston Baby Research Unit (Saturday 28th June)

Dr Fan Carter will offer locals the chance to reconnect with their 1960s shopping expeditions into Kingston, when Bentall’s Department store had its very own Honey girl to help young women choose clothes that would suit them.

Other events sponsored by other members of the group will include The Big Sing and Bowtown, a celebration of Bollywood.

The growth of festivals over the past few years has been much remarked upon. They are popular for many reasons, but one of the main consequences is that they bring communities together. In our case, KC also offers our students the opportunity to see how they are organised and run – and get involved themselves, which of course builds both their experience and their employability. MA Publishing students will of course be part of this, but also working with students from Business and Law.

Universities today are very much encouraged to be part of their local communities, and not ivory towers. Kingston’s staff and students are already highly engaged locally, in a wide variety of volunteering ventures – but the events in June offer a unique chance to learn more about the research that is going on locally. The university’s research is already of interest nationally, and internationally – but in June will be specifically presented for the benefit of our local audience. We hope to see you there.

Our client, a leading London based worldwide children’s book publisher seeks a business development manager to develop and manage their growing business with their mass market national retail key accounts. This is a new role, created due to the publishers increasing market share of sales in the childrens mass market sector. You’ll be selling a wide range of […]

A rapidly growing subscription publisher is looking to recruit a Senior Product Developer to lead the publishing team, ensuring targets are met and also to lead on publishing product development, to enable high quality market research. The Senior Product Developer will focus on the development and launch of new subscription products and will ensure that pr […]

We are looking for a confident Publisher to join and help lead our lively London-based team, as well as develop our lists in Cultural Studies, Anthropology and Geography. Rowman & Littlefield International is an independent academic publisher, launched in London in 2012 and backed by an established American publishing group. We are an ambitious and coll […]

We have a fabulous opening with a highly successful children’s imprint, for a Senior International Sales Executive. If you are interested in children’s publishing, have experience in co-edition sales and enjoy travel, this could be your ideal next step within a friendly, professional environment. The Senior International Sales Executive is a pivotal role […]

An exciting opportunity for a senior entrepreneurial and focused product developer to work for a subscriptions publisher (print and digital), to launch new subscription products. To research, develop, test and launch new products in a range of media in both new and existing markets. To ensure that new products and product types in existing and new markets ar […]